I really don't agree here. I have gone back and played BG1, BG2, all of the expansions as well as IWD 1 and 2 and their expansions. I really prefer the old system. NWN certainly better graphics, but they really missed the boat by making it too focused on single-character development.
When I play BG/IWD, I play in MP mode and create a full party straight away and use auto-pause. NWN is a totally-different experience that just doesn't satisfy as much.
I still have BG1 installed on my system to this day. Best game ever.
Totally agree. NWN blew me away in terms of complexity and the toolset, but the lack of party control and the dull characters were a serious disappointment.
Years ago, a company called "Webb Technologies" (or something like that) claimed to have 16:1 lossless compression (on any data). They made several press releases and caused quite a stir.
Byte magazine followed the story with interest for months, urging Webb to release the code or give a public demo - but of course that never happened.
I'm not sure what ever happened to Webb, but I sure hope ZeoSync's investors pursue fraud charges when this is exposed for what it is.
Relying on a third-party (especially an internet company) for all of your transactions sounds like a bad business plan. Why not get a merchant account?
Cell-phone/PDA combos are a neat idea, but until there is a major advancement in display technology, either the phone is going to be too big or the screen is going to be too small. Not even the whiz-bang new Japanese phones address this.
Although it may seem counter-intuitive and it certainly offends the sensibilities of social libertarians, filtering software actually encourages the use of the net.
Without filtering technology to make the internet a little more palatable, many countries might be tempted to ban it altogether.
Well, if he thinks the windows installs are clean, then let him just install 1000 programs, and deinstall them.
Then check how much space you used before and after, and just start to panic.
Aside from apps that have outright broken uninstalls, there is a semi-legitimate reason for this: Many Window sapplications install shared DLLs like msvcrt, mfcxxx, etc. - once these are installed, you aren't supposed to remove them (and there is no good reason to).
Some Windows applications have become lax at this and started installing into the "windows" directory.
I think one of the big problems here is that all kinds of stuff ends up in/usr/bin,/usr/local/bin and other "catch-all" locations that really don't need to be there.
I'd prefer to see only commands that I am likely to use from a shell in/usr/bin - everything else should go somewhere else. Major applications like Mozilla need to be in their own directories - you shouldn't need to have these in your path since you're likely to launch them from buttons on the panel.
Microsoft is just now getting around to addressing a similar issue in Windows - for years, developers have dumped application-specific DLLs in \winnt\system32 for no good reason. Now they are strongly discouraging this.
This issue stems primarily from the simplistic path-searching mechanism shared by pretty much every OS out there. Either you dump tons of crap in standard locations like/usr/bin or you have a PATH variable a mile long. Perhaps there is an opportunity for a technical advancement here...
It doesn't matter if the end result is desirable or not.
It doesn't matter if other manufacturers are doing it too.
It is blatent benchmark manipulation (cheating) and it is dishonest because the intent isn't to provide better performance to Quake players, it is to make their product look better in magazine benchmark shootouts.
It is deceitful and wrong. ATI, and any other manufacturer who engages in this sort of activity, deserves every bit of flak they get for it.
ATI products have long lagged behind the competition. Apparently, they can't build better products, so they have to resort to dirty tricks.
Same goes for third-party web-based applications and services. It is VERY difficult to convince an IT group to open new ports - even if they are for established, standardized protocols.
Running on ports other than 80 is frequently a deal-breaker when trying to sell network applications into highly security-conscious environments. Most network admins equate more open ports with less security whether it is justified or not. HTTP is something they know and understand and already have set their network up to suppor - SOAP just makes sense.
If a web site's content is so valueless that the operators would resort to some sort of "penny a page" scheme for revenue generation, I think it quite likely no one would ever visit their site again. If you can't generate revenue by selling advertising or by providing a service then maybe you need to rethink your business plan.
Video games are as much art as movies are. In fact, one of my hopes for the gaming industry is to see it mature - at least in some ways - into something similar to the movie industry, where there is room not only for the heavily-produced blockbusters, but also for more artisticly-inclined "indy" titles.
Although I think this article is sensationalist - there is no mass exodus from broadband; quite the opposite in fact - I have to comment on the "reliability" of 56k modems.
What percentage of the time did you really get a 56k connection? I rarely ever saw anything above 33.6 - and only then when the lines weren't busy or down.
We use Together - it is nice, but since it is written Java (using Swing), it is dog slow and you need 512mb to run it effectively. It would be a fantastic product if it were written in C++ using a native toolkit.
I don't know about the UK, but in the US, any sort of unauthorized access to a computer network is a crime - regardless of how easy it was to gain said access.
One of the key things I see plaguing accurate software schedule estimation is the lack of understanding of what you are building.
When a skyscraper or airplane is built, the schedule is often proceeded by years of research to determine precisely how each brick should be laid or how each rivet should be placed before the estimate for actual construction is made. Software rarely benefits from any research at all.
If the software industry were saddled with the same level of process that exists in other engineering professions, we'd still be using character-based software, the web and the internet as we know it today wouldn't exist and most business would still be conducted on paper.
From 1990 to 1993, I had the unique opportunity to work closely with Gary Kildall.
By that time, Gary was already in the process of separating himself officially from Digital Research (did you know it was originally named "Intergalactic Digital Research"?) to pursue other interests, but was still in touch with the company on a personal level.
It was a great experience and a wonderful way to start a geek career. I originally was hired to help build and test wire-wrapped prototypes (for an internet appliance no less! in 1990!). Quickly from there Gary recognized my coding abilities and I was writing embedded code within a few weeks of starting.
Microsoft had just released Windows 3.1 and boy was Gary pissed - apparently Microsoft had intentionally modified Windows since 3.0 to specifically not work on DR-DOS (and yes, that's Digital Research DOS, not "doctor DOS"). MS claimed otherwise, but it was enough to pretty much kill DR - DR-DOS never reclaimed the lost market share (the first killer-apps were beginning to hit big in Windows at that point) and you all know the rest of that story.
Now for some ancient history - I was always cringe when I hear the oft-repeated story that IBM chose MS-DOS over CP/M for the PC because Gary was out flying his airplane when they showed up or some variation thereof. This is at best a half-truth.
Gary was already a wealthy man by that point. CP/M was licensed by a variety of manufacturers and DR was doing reasonably well. At that time, there was no reason to think that one single computer architecture would rise to completely dominate the industry - you had Osbournes, Kaypros, Apples, Commodore PETs, and a host of other machines all with loyal followings.
When IBM was designing the PC, they didn't want to merely license a DOS from another company they wanted to own a DOS. This put Gary off, he viewed CP/M as having a future and he didn't want to completely sell out to IBM. Microsoft had no such reluctance. Microsoft sold PC-DOS to IBM and continued to produce MS-DOS - hence MS-DOS vs. PC-DOS. It was a happy relationship for a while, but we all know the rest of that story. DR did go on to license CP/M-86 to IBM as an alternative, but by that time, it was too little too late.
Also, I wanted to comment on the story that during a visit with IBM, Gary typed in some code on MS-DOS and made a Digital Research copyright notice appear - I'm pretty sure this is just an industry legend. Gary never accused them of stealing actual code, just stealing ideas.
Whoever modded this redundant is off-base. This is the core of the issue.
The whole problem here is that some browsers don't correctly or fully implement the standards (NS 4.x) or that other browsers (IE) "extend" the standard with proprietary tags and then web content producers build sites with a single browser in mind.
Browser makers need to choose a level of W3C standards-compliance (v3, v4, etc.) and implement to chosen level religiously. Likewise, web developers need to do the same with their sites - pick a level of compliance and stick to it. Modern browsers (at least IE6 and recent versions of Mozilla) are doing a much better job of standards-compliance.
Recently I was working in my system and, in the process of putting everything back together, I managed to shift one of the drive-power cable harnesses down onto the CPU fan. This blocked the fan when I powered up. The system froze within about a minute after booting. Fortunately, I found the problem and the CPU worked after unblocking the fan.
This was is a 1Ghz CPU, so I don't how different that is from the 1.2.
Slashdot Mirror
This keeps coming up... and getting killed. For good reason.
The only people having trouble spam these days are those not smart enough to install SpamBayes :)
I really don't agree here. I have gone back and played BG1, BG2, all of the expansions as well as IWD 1 and 2 and their expansions. I really prefer the old system. NWN certainly better graphics, but they really missed the boat by making it too focused on single-character development. When I play BG/IWD, I play in MP mode and create a full party straight away and use auto-pause. NWN is a totally-different experience that just doesn't satisfy as much. I still have BG1 installed on my system to this day. Best game ever.
Totally agree. NWN blew me away in terms of complexity and the toolset, but the lack of party control and the dull characters were a serious disappointment.
Years ago, a company called "Webb Technologies" (or something like that) claimed to have 16:1 lossless compression (on any data). They made several press releases and caused quite a stir.
Byte magazine followed the story with interest for months, urging Webb to release the code or give a public demo - but of course that never happened.
I'm not sure what ever happened to Webb, but I sure hope ZeoSync's investors pursue fraud charges when this is exposed for what it is.
Relying on a third-party (especially an internet company) for all of your transactions sounds like a bad business plan. Why not get a merchant account?
Cell-phone/PDA combos are a neat idea, but until there is a major advancement in display technology, either the phone is going to be too big or the screen is going to be too small. Not even the whiz-bang new Japanese phones address this.
Although it may seem counter-intuitive and it certainly offends the sensibilities of social libertarians, filtering software actually encourages the use of the net.
Without filtering technology to make the internet a little more palatable, many countries might be tempted to ban it altogether.
The GPL is so laden with restrictions to call it "free" is simply ridiculous.
Well, if he thinks the windows installs are clean, then let him just install 1000 programs, and deinstall them. Then check how much space you used before and after, and just start to panic.
Aside from apps that have outright broken uninstalls, there is a semi-legitimate reason for this: Many Window sapplications install shared DLLs like msvcrt, mfcxxx, etc. - once these are installed, you aren't supposed to remove them (and there is no good reason to).
Some Windows applications have become lax at this and started installing into the "windows" directory.And I thought all Windows programs did this.
Not since the Windows 3.x days.
I think one of the big problems here is that all kinds of stuff ends up in /usr/bin, /usr/local/bin and other "catch-all" locations that really don't need to be there.
I'd prefer to see only commands that I am likely to use from a shell in /usr/bin - everything else should go somewhere else. Major applications like Mozilla need to be in their own directories - you shouldn't need to have these in your path since you're likely to launch them from buttons on the panel.
Microsoft is just now getting around to addressing a similar issue in Windows - for years, developers have dumped application-specific DLLs in \winnt\system32 for no good reason. Now they are strongly discouraging this.
This issue stems primarily from the simplistic path-searching mechanism shared by pretty much every OS out there. Either you dump tons of crap in standard locations like /usr/bin or you have a PATH variable a mile long. Perhaps there is an opportunity for a technical advancement here...
It doesn't matter if the end result is desirable or not.
It doesn't matter if other manufacturers are doing it too.
It is blatent benchmark manipulation (cheating) and it is dishonest because the intent isn't to provide better performance to Quake players, it is to make their product look better in magazine benchmark shootouts.
It is deceitful and wrong. ATI, and any other manufacturer who engages in this sort of activity, deserves every bit of flak they get for it.
ATI products have long lagged behind the competition. Apparently, they can't build better products, so they have to resort to dirty tricks.
Same goes for third-party web-based applications and services. It is VERY difficult to convince an IT group to open new ports - even if they are for established, standardized protocols.
Running on ports other than 80 is frequently a deal-breaker when trying to sell network applications into highly security-conscious environments. Most network admins equate more open ports with less security whether it is justified or not. HTTP is something they know and understand and already have set their network up to suppor - SOAP just makes sense.
If a web site's content is so valueless that the operators would resort to some sort of "penny a page" scheme for revenue generation, I think it quite likely no one would ever visit their site again. If you can't generate revenue by selling advertising or by providing a service then maybe you need to rethink your business plan.
Where does this sh*t come from?
It's a beautiful thing.
Video games are as much art as movies are. In fact, one of my hopes for the gaming industry is to see it mature - at least in some ways - into something similar to the movie industry, where there is room not only for the heavily-produced blockbusters, but also for more artisticly-inclined "indy" titles.
Although I think this article is sensationalist - there is no mass exodus from broadband; quite the opposite in fact - I have to comment on the "reliability" of 56k modems.
What percentage of the time did you really get a 56k connection? I rarely ever saw anything above 33.6 - and only then when the lines weren't busy or down.
We use Together - it is nice, but since it is written Java (using Swing), it is dog slow and you need 512mb to run it effectively. It would be a fantastic product if it were written in C++ using a native toolkit.
How about air-travel security?
I don't know about the UK, but in the US, any sort of unauthorized access to a computer network is a crime - regardless of how easy it was to gain said access.
One of the key things I see plaguing accurate software schedule estimation is the lack of understanding of what you are building.
When a skyscraper or airplane is built, the schedule is often proceeded by years of research to determine precisely how each brick should be laid or how each rivet should be placed before the estimate for actual construction is made. Software rarely benefits from any research at all.
If the software industry were saddled with the same level of process that exists in other engineering professions, we'd still be using character-based software, the web and the internet as we know it today wouldn't exist and most business would still be conducted on paper.
Very few organizations of any kind will support XP right out of the chute. Hell, there are plenty that still don't officially support Windows 2000.
From 1990 to 1993, I had the unique opportunity to work closely with Gary Kildall.
By that time, Gary was already in the process of separating himself officially from Digital Research (did you know it was originally named "Intergalactic Digital Research"?) to pursue other interests, but was still in touch with the company on a personal level.
It was a great experience and a wonderful way to start a geek career. I originally was hired to help build and test wire-wrapped prototypes (for an internet appliance no less! in 1990!). Quickly from there Gary recognized my coding abilities and I was writing embedded code within a few weeks of starting.
Microsoft had just released Windows 3.1 and boy was Gary pissed - apparently Microsoft had intentionally modified Windows since 3.0 to specifically not work on DR-DOS (and yes, that's Digital Research DOS, not "doctor DOS"). MS claimed otherwise, but it was enough to pretty much kill DR - DR-DOS never reclaimed the lost market share (the first killer-apps were beginning to hit big in Windows at that point) and you all know the rest of that story.
Now for some ancient history - I was always cringe when I hear the oft-repeated story that IBM chose MS-DOS over CP/M for the PC because Gary was out flying his airplane when they showed up or some variation thereof. This is at best a half-truth.
Gary was already a wealthy man by that point. CP/M was licensed by a variety of manufacturers and DR was doing reasonably well. At that time, there was no reason to think that one single computer architecture would rise to completely dominate the industry - you had Osbournes, Kaypros, Apples, Commodore PETs, and a host of other machines all with loyal followings.
When IBM was designing the PC, they didn't want to merely license a DOS from another company they wanted to own a DOS. This put Gary off, he viewed CP/M as having a future and he didn't want to completely sell out to IBM. Microsoft had no such reluctance. Microsoft sold PC-DOS to IBM and continued to produce MS-DOS - hence MS-DOS vs. PC-DOS. It was a happy relationship for a while, but we all know the rest of that story. DR did go on to license CP/M-86 to IBM as an alternative, but by that time, it was too little too late.
Also, I wanted to comment on the story that during a visit with IBM, Gary typed in some code on MS-DOS and made a Digital Research copyright notice appear - I'm pretty sure this is just an industry legend. Gary never accused them of stealing actual code, just stealing ideas.
Whoever modded this redundant is off-base. This is the core of the issue.
The whole problem here is that some browsers don't correctly or fully implement the standards (NS 4.x) or that other browsers (IE) "extend" the standard with proprietary tags and then web content producers build sites with a single browser in mind.
Browser makers need to choose a level of W3C standards-compliance (v3, v4, etc.) and implement to chosen level religiously. Likewise, web developers need to do the same with their sites - pick a level of compliance and stick to it. Modern browsers (at least IE6 and recent versions of Mozilla) are doing a much better job of standards-compliance.
Recently I was working in my system and, in the process of putting everything back together, I managed to shift one of the drive-power cable harnesses down onto the CPU fan. This blocked the fan when I powered up. The system froze within about a minute after booting. Fortunately, I found the problem and the CPU worked after unblocking the fan. This was is a 1Ghz CPU, so I don't how different that is from the 1.2.